JК
Sharpes Siege :: Корнуэлл Бернард
Страница: 187 из 223”
Sharpe grimaced. “I thought he’d live.”
“Difficult with a bullet in your bellows.”
“Yes.” Poor Fytch, who was so very proud, Sharpe remembered, of his pistol. “Wounded?”
“At least thirty are bad, sir.” Harper’s voice was bleak.
A howitzer shell landed in the courtyard, bounced, and exploded. The shells seemed like small things after the fight. If the French had any sense, Sharpe thought, they would assault now. They should have men clawing and screaming at the walls, but perhaps the French were as shaken as he was.
Rifleman Taylor came up from the courtyard and spat tobacco juice over the ramparts. He jerked a thumb towards Harper’s cannon. “It’s buggered.”
“Buggered?” Sharpe asked.
“Snapped a capsquare.” The field-gun’s left trunnion had leaped out of its socket and broken the metal strap that should have held it in place. Doubtless Bampfylde’s fire had weakened the capsquare and now the twelve-pounder was as good as useless. Sharpe looked at Harper. “See what you can do, Patrick.”
“I can give wine to the lads?” Harper suggested bleakly.
“Do that.” Sharpe walked around the ramparts. French dead, stripped of their equipment, were being heaved on to the sand by the channel. If any of his men had shown the energy Sharpe would have ordered shallow graves dug, but even their own dead lay unburied. Two Marines, their faces still masked with powder, wearily hauled an abandoned French ladder through an embrasure and carried it down to the gate where it would be added to the new barricade.
Sharpe threaded the south-west citadel, wondering how he had ever come through it at the full charge. The French gunners, advised that the wounded had been cleared from the fort’s apron, opened fire again. The jets of flame stabbed from the watermill and the twelve-pound shots crashed into the wall to fray the defenders’ already shredded nerves. Sharpe found Frederickson. “Thank you, William.”
“For doing my duty?” Sweat had trickled through the powder on Frederickson’s face to make odd brown rivulets on his sun-baked skin.
“I’m leaving you in command,” Sharpe said, “while I go to see the wounded.”
“I’d have that attended to.” Frederickson gestured at Sharpe’s left thigh where the blood started by a French bayonet had crusted on to the overalls.
“It doesn’t hurt.” Sharpe raised his voice so that every man about the gate could hear him. “Well done!” Two Marines, carrying a body, grinned at him.
Sharpe grimaced. “I thought he’d live.”
“Difficult with a bullet in your bellows.”
“Yes.” Poor Fytch, who was so very proud, Sharpe remembered, of his pistol. “Wounded?”
“At least thirty are bad, sir.” Harper’s voice was bleak.
A howitzer shell landed in the courtyard, bounced, and exploded. The shells seemed like small things after the fight. If the French had any sense, Sharpe thought, they would assault now. They should have men clawing and screaming at the walls, but perhaps the French were as shaken as he was.
Rifleman Taylor came up from the courtyard and spat tobacco juice over the ramparts. He jerked a thumb towards Harper’s cannon. “It’s buggered.”
“Buggered?” Sharpe asked.
“Snapped a capsquare.” The field-gun’s left trunnion had leaped out of its socket and broken the metal strap that should have held it in place. Doubtless Bampfylde’s fire had weakened the capsquare and now the twelve-pounder was as good as useless. Sharpe looked at Harper. “See what you can do, Patrick.”
“I can give wine to the lads?” Harper suggested bleakly.
“Do that.” Sharpe walked around the ramparts. French dead, stripped of their equipment, were being heaved on to the sand by the channel. If any of his men had shown the energy Sharpe would have ordered shallow graves dug, but even their own dead lay unburied. Two Marines, their faces still masked with powder, wearily hauled an abandoned French ladder through an embrasure and carried it down to the gate where it would be added to the new barricade.
Sharpe threaded the south-west citadel, wondering how he had ever come through it at the full charge. The French gunners, advised that the wounded had been cleared from the fort’s apron, opened fire again. The jets of flame stabbed from the watermill and the twelve-pound shots crashed into the wall to fray the defenders’ already shredded nerves. Sharpe found Frederickson. “Thank you, William.”
“For doing my duty?” Sweat had trickled through the powder on Frederickson’s face to make odd brown rivulets on his sun-baked skin.
“I’m leaving you in command,” Sharpe said, “while I go to see the wounded.”
“I’d have that attended to.” Frederickson gestured at Sharpe’s left thigh where the blood started by a French bayonet had crusted on to the overalls.
“It doesn’t hurt.” Sharpe raised his voice so that every man about the gate could hear him. “Well done!” Two Marines, carrying a body, grinned at him.